Poor, Poor Bechuanaland

We guess that as a protectorate, and not a colony, the British could argue they didn’t really have much of a duty to Bechuanaland other than to protect it from unwelcome encroachments. For this is pretty much all they did. Fortunately, there were none of the massacres and maltreatments that occurred in some British colonies.

Nonetheless, the British kept investment and administrative development to a minimum. Mind you, some of the kgosi saw this as a good thing. For example, efforts were made to introduce mining in the 1930s, but they were blocked by the kgosi, who saw a risk of white encroachment, and in particular from South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. They may, indeed probably, of course, have been quite right. The Protectorate fairly much became an impoverished source of migrant labour for the giant South African diamond and gold mines, as well as being the rail transit route to Rhodesia - the same rail line on which Mma Ramotswe's mum was killed.

Of course, mining is the source of Mma Ramotswe’s father’s ability to purchase his sweet smelling cattle, and of the awful condition that killed him. Mma Ramotswe never names an illness directly, so we don't know exactly what killed her father. But from her description it could possibly be fully preventable tuberculosis (TB), or, perhaps more probably, fully preventable silicosis, or miner’s lung.

As you can see from the image up above, TB is rampant in South African mines. The owners do damn all to help prevent it or even minimise it, although we're sure their propaganda says otherwise. And when they've had a miner's pound of flesh, the owners have them chucked out of the mine and South Africa, to go back home and spread their disease around sub-Saharan Africa. With, of course, no financial assistance, or any other forms of assistance at all. Or, where there is assistance, it is in effect damn all.

Ultimately, while there can be other very unpleasant outcomes, without adequate treatment the victim starts coughing up blood from what are called lesions on their lungs, then they start coughing up bits of lung, and when there's no more to cough up they die. TB used to be easily treated in its early stages with antibiotics, but now there are strains of TB which are antibiotic-resistant, and they are a very major threat to life in TB-prone parts of the world, and, indeed, the rest of us as well.

This unfortunate bloke on the left isn't from Botswana, and wasn't a miner. We couldn't find a good photo of a Botswanan TB patient, and could only find a few of miners in general, very few from South African mines. Perhaps we looked in the wrong places. Anyway, this poor man looks close to death. If Mma Ramotswe's father had TB this is what he would look like at the end. Although, we suspect she would have mentioned if he had been coughing up blood and lung matter. But, we're not so sure Sandy would.

Silicosis, unlike tuberculosis, has one good point - it's not a disease, so can't be spread. I'm afraid it's all downhill from there. Silicosis comes from breathing in vast quantities of silica dust (effectively, rock dust) during the mining process, which eventually sets like stone in the miner’s lungs, limiting his (it’s usually a bloke) ability to breathe. And, of course, if you can’t breathe, you die. The nasty picture on the left down below is probably what the poor devil on the right's lungs look like. Again, he's not Botswanan, but he is a South African miner. If Mma Ramotswe's daddy had silicosis, he and his lungs would look much the same.

The mining companies know all about this of course, but they took (take) few, if any, steps to prevent it. They knew they could always find cheap labour to replace the silicosis victims. And employers wonder why workers form unions, and why unions are such sudden death on safety matters. Mind you, the mining companies usually have the government, and therefore the police, on their side. And they don’t hesitate to shoot to kill, or to cover up such killings as occur. Even under the government of the African National Congress, which is supposed to represent the rights of poor black people.

And, unlike in Mma Ramotswe's daddy's time, there is now HIV/AIDS, which is also rampant these days, largely because of the South African government's previously appalling policies as regards this disease, the miners' regular unprotected sex with prostitutes, and because mine conditions are so rotten that many of them apparently don't care whether or not they die from this awful disease. To them, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. Mind you, if HIV/AIDS had existed in Mma Ramotswe's daddy's time, we're quite sure he wouldn't have come back with it.

Location

(sort of!)

GrumpyKoala's comments

(without the swearing!)

1. We would love to hear from you. Please email us.

2. Please click on an ad and buy something. African girls need help to achieve anywhere near their potential, and like it or not that's the best way to achieve positive change in the great but desperate continent of Africa. Money spent on this will benefit us immensely in future years (that last sentence is for those with cash who don't understand that giving simply to help people is in itself reason enough!).

3. The map points to our location, sort of.

4.Google, why the flying farts have you labelled Australia "Oceania"? Don't get me wrong, I know that's our region. But the continent is "Australia". Or perhaps it's changed since I went to school? Or is it just another case of the United States ignoring the sensibilities of a powerless country?

5. Oh, and koalas are koalas, not bloody bears! Or unbloody bears, for that matter!!

please, Contact Us

Please. Honest. True dinks. Rewly trewly. We want you to contact us - unless you're trolling. In which case you'll wish you had an on-hand supply of anusol!